Chief minister Yogi Adityanath assured the state assembly that there will not be any misuse of the law being enacted to control organized crime in Uttar Pradesh.

Yogi gave statistical data to make his point that the crime graph had witnessed a downward trend following measures initiated by his government to nab criminals.(Subhankar Chakraborty/HT PHOTO)

Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday assured the state assembly that there will not be any misuse of the law being enacted to control organized crime in Uttar Pradesh.

“The BJP government has neither misused any law nor will it misuse this one. We are here to provide security to people. The opposition is making different statements against the proposed law. No one can misuse this law and opposing this means defending those indulging in organized crime,” said Yogi while initiating debate on Uttar Pradesh Control of Organised Crime Bill 2017 that was later passed in the house amid walkout by the entire opposition.

Yogi gave statistical data to make his point that the crime graph had witnessed a downward trend following measures initiated by his government to nab criminals. He said crime was being committed to give a bad name to his government. “Do you want organized crime to flourish,” asked Yogi adding there were cases of extortion from roadside vendors as well.

Yogi read out provisions of the bill to make his point that the new law had stringent provisions that were even better than the provisions of the provisions of Gangsters Act. “A criminal would not be given bail again if an offence has been committed when the perpetrator of crime is already on bail,” he said. Yogi said no security would be given to those involved in organized crime.

Yogi said the new law would check organized crime like kidnapping for ransom, stopping others from taking part in tendering process of government and public sector undertakings and illegal mining etc. “This law will break the backbone of criminals indulging in organized crime. If the bill is passed unanimously in the house it will send a good message,” said Yogi.

About some statements made against the bill, Yogi said everbody was aware about the image of those opposing the bill.

Leader of the Opposition Ram Govind Chaudhary called the move ‘undeclared emergency’ that would target the media. Chaudhary said the newspapers and news channels would have to take prior permission of police to publish news items. “Such restrictions had been imposed on the media during emergency as well,” said Chaudhary.

He also referred to objections minister for parliamentary affairs Suresh Khanna and BJP MP Hukum Singh had raised against a similar law that the Mayawati government had introduced in the house on November 5, 2007.

Chaudhary said laws like Gangsters Act and Goonda Act were first used against student leaders in UP and the law to check organized crime may also be misused in a similar manner. He said the BJP government should not have brought such a bill as it had experience of facing the Emergency. ‘About 90 percent of BJP and RSS workers and 100 percent Samajwadi Party leaders were sent to jail during the Emergency,” he said.

Chaudhary said the BJP had been talking about bringing Ram Rajya but it had brought the UPCOCB instead. In a lighter vein, Chaudhary said he did not find a mention of any such law in the Ramayan.

To this, minister for parliamentary affairs Suresh Khanna said there was a mention of death sentence awarded to those who involved in “Sita Haran” (kidnapping of Sita).